The research sponsored by the East of England Development Agency, supported by ACER and AUEE. It detailed in the full report showcases the work being done in four of the region’s FE colleges to engage widening participation students in HE.

•City College Norwich focused on the institutional rationale for providing HE, drew attention to the importance of local access and touched upon progression routes to other institutions.  Key concerns included: speeding up and streamlining the admissions procedure; improving marketing; better quality advice and guidance procedures; heightening awareness of progression routes to both internal and external staff and improving the HE tutorial system.. 

•Colchester Institute reported on the first phase of an innovative action research project investigating the benefits of ICT-based pedagogies in enabling collaborative learning.  It provides an insight into the diversity of the college’s student body and draws upon this to consider the ways in which the students approach both ICT and collaborative learning. 

•Peterborough Regional College addressed the aspirations and attitudes of potential students from underrepresented ethnic minority groups in and around Peterborough.  It considered the obstacles presented by their socio-economic backgrounds. 

•West Herts College made use of a survey addressing issues of student support and satisfaction.  It examined some of the issues in the earlier reports in the light of staff and student attitudes to teaching and learning at the college.   

These four studies are then used to examine:

•how HE in FE is understood, interpreted and experienced by the participating institutions, their staff and the students themselves;
•how staff construct HE in FE and, in particular, how they respond to the pedagogic needs of their students;
•the aspirations and achievements of the students, their understanding of HE and what it can offer them; and
•how these students engage with the institutional identities of the colleges and the teaching and learning that takes place in them.

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